Rulers and Dividers: A Technology

of Design
Philip Luscombe

Introduction
Rulers and dividers enable the discovery and definition of dis-
tances. Both tools, shown in Figure 1, can be used as instruments
with which to determine the dimensions of a nascent artifact.
Although they are similar in their capabilities, there is a funda-
mental difference in the nature of these two tools. A ruler is used
to specify distances according to standardized systems of mea-
surement (e.g., inches or millimeters), whereas dividers are used to

Figure 1
A pair of dividers (left) and a six-inch ruler.

© 2018 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

doi: 10.1162/DESI_a_00482 DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018 5

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021


1 Jeffrey Huw Williams, Defining and
Measuring Nature: The Make of All
Things (San Rafael, CA: Morgan &
Claypool Publishers, 2014), chap. 1, 6.
6 DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021
“step out” proportional relationships, by setting their points to a
distance and walking them across a surface. In what follows,
I compare these alternative techniques of layout and consider
how they ask us to conceive of an emergent design in very differ-
ent terms.
This comparison first requires reflection on the role of mea-
surement systems in design practice. My article therefore begins
with a brief history of these systems. I clarify that, despite their
ubiquity throughout contemporary practice, standardized units of
measure are not a prerequisite of design work. I discuss pre-indus-
trial methods of designing and making—both to demonstrate this
lack of necessity and, for those unfamiliar with divider use, to
introduce how proportional systems of layout work.
Central to my discussion of rulers and dividers is the idea
that tools and techniques can be understood not only in terms of
their capacity for achieving goals, but also according to the ways in
which they inform processes of design. This approach promotes
the role of action and the external world in cognition. To this end,
the paper draws inspiration from the theory of extended mind—
specifically, the concept that human cognition not only takes place
inside the brain (or body) but also is distributed across the tools we
use. Although this theoretical grounding is rarely applied in stud-
ies of design and making practice, I show that it provides a useful
basis from which to interrogate the ways our tools and techniques
structure processes of design.
In a discussion of the article’s broader implications, I sug-
gest that we might conceive of this sort of inquiry as an exercise in
technology. If we ignore the conventional definition of the word
and instead follow a line of French scholarship that takes technolo-
gie to be the study of techniques, analyses like the one presented
here can be considered a technology of design. I use the study of
rulers and dividers to demonstrate how such a technology,
founded in an appreciation for the extendedness of mind, could be
pursued more generally. For example, I suggest how a similar
interrogation of the role of measurement systems could be applied
to CAD software. In this and many other areas of design practice,
the proposed role of technology would be to better understand the
ways in which tools and techniques might steer, support, or poten-
tially compromise our processes.
Systems of Measurement
The earliest known systems of measurement saw ancient builders
lay out dimensions using distances found on their bodies. The con-
venience of having such measures (quite literally) at hand meant
that distances like the cubit, which was the distance between the
point of the elbow and the tip of the middle finger, were in wide-
spread use across many cultures.1 Using dimensions defined by
 Figure 2
The Egyptian cubit and its subdivisions of
six palms.
2 David Turnbull, “The Ad Hoc Collective
Work of Building Gothic Cathedrals with
Templates, String, and Geometry,”
Science, Technology, & Human Values 18,
no. 3 (1993): 315–40.
3 Williams, Defining and Measuring
Nature, chap. 1, 6.
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021
arms, feet, fingers and hands, the designers and makers of an-
tiquity were able to develop, remember, and share the informa-
tion required to lay out their work. Variation inevitably existed
between distances measured by different individuals, but these
discrepancies were not considered problematic. Accuracy in the
joints of woodworkers, masons, or metalsmiths relied on their abil-
ity to fit one component to another according to the specifics of an
individual circumstance, rather than precise adherence to a uni-
versal system of measurement.2 In contrast to the contemporary
scenario of distributed labor, production lines, and outsourced
components, exact definitions of distance offered few advantages
when parts were made to fit locally.
Beyond the convenience of being readily available on any
job site, distances found on the human body also provided ancient
builders with a collection of dimensions that had useful propor-
tional relationships. For example, the cubit was divided into six
palm widths (see Figure 2). A measurement made using the thumb
could be multiplied 12 times to approximate the length of a foot.
The distance between the tip of the nose and the fingertips of an
outstretched hand equaled three feet, and an arm span was twice
this length.3 Again, although such distances would vary between
individuals, these proportional relationships across the same per-
son’s body were usefully consistent. Using simple divisions and
multiplications of these measures, artisans were able to discover
structurally sound and beautiful proportions, as they designed
and made artifacts of lasting appeal.
DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018 7
 Figure 3
“The Round One” Chair by Hans J. Wegner,
with modules overlaid, where one module
is roughly equivalent to a hand span.

In their book, By Hand & Eye, woodwork instructors and

theorists George Walker and Jim Tolpin refer to these methods of
design and production as “artisan geometry.”4 Their investigation
of the subject leads them to study the tools and techniques used by
the artisans of what they call the “pre-industrial” age.5 With just a
pair of dividers, a straightedge, string, and a mark-making tool,
and without any recourse to complex mathematics, Walker and
Tolpin show how designers and makers were able to accurately lay
out all the angles, curves, and shapes they needed. Rather than
being specified by standardized units of distance or degrees of
angles, these designs were made with reference only to propor-
tional relationships. Instead of asking, “How high is this base
dimension in inches?” when making a piece of furniture, “pre-
industrial artisans would have asked, ‘How tall is this base in pro-
portion to the case above it? How wide is this leg in proportion to
its height? How much does this leg taper in proportion to its width
at the widest part?’ ”6 Very often, the first dimension of a design
was fixed according to the designer or maker’s own body. For
example, a chair seat could typically be set to two hand spans
high.7 With their dividers set to the width of a hand span, or sim-
ple whole number divisions of this dimension, designers could
then determine the sizes of the chair’s other elements (see Figure
4 George R. Walker and Jim Tolpin, By 3). In this mode of working, a system of measurement is devel-
Hand & Eye (Fort Mitchell, KY: Lost Art oped alongside each design, unique to the demands of the task.
Press, 2013), 97. Designing in this way focuses attention on the association of parts
5 Ibid.
and wholes.
6 Ibid., 11.
7 Ibid., 165.

8 DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021

 Figure 4
Hand saw (left) and table saw user interface
where numbers are inputted (right).
8 Ibid., 10.
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021
Only with the advent of industrialized production did
shared units of measurement become valuable. When compo-
nent parts began to be made in multiples, to be assembled
later along a production line, their sizes needed to be closely
controlled. Although we see some evidence of rudimentary stan-
dardization in pre-industrialized society (e.g., cubit rods made of
wood or stone were used in ancient Egypt), the need for precisely
defined, shared units of measurement grew only with the
demands of mechanized production. Walker and Tolpin explain
that “as cutting tools were bolted to machine fixtures rather than
guided by hands… we began needing numbers to feed machines.”8
(Figure 4 illustrates one example of this development, by contrast-
ing a hand saw with a table saw interface.)
My interest here is not to argue against the obvious useful-
ness of standardized measurement systems and the associated
tools and techniques used with them. Conceiving of how modern
production processes could work without shared measures is
impossible. However, despite their contemporary ubiquity, the
methods of pre-industrialized production demonstrate that
standardized and precise units of measurement are not a prereq-
uisite of design practice. As happened throughout antiquity, work-
ing without these units is certainly possible—until they are
required to be fed into a machine or specified on a drawing for
third-party production.
DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018 9

9 Andy Clark and David Chalmers, “The
Extended Mind,” Analysis (1998): 7.
10 Ibid., 8.
11 David Kirsh and Paul Maglio, “On
Distinguishing Epistemic from Pragmatic
Action,” Cognitive Science 18, no. 4
(1994): 513.
10
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021
Throughout this paper then, I do not present dividers and
the associated use of proportional layout systems as a relic of
bygone artisanal techniques. In many situations of design practice,
they can be understood as an alternative to drawing freehand or
using a ruler or any other method. In comparing the use of divid-
ers and rulers, the topic of interest is not the limits of their capaci-
ties, or what they can and cannot be used for. I compare the tools
not to suggest that they are interchangeable or of equivalent func-
tion, but as a means to explore how these alternative methods of
discovering and defining distances structure the process of design.
This exploration is undertaken to acknowledge the influence of
tools and techniques on the process of working things out—an
approach that requires us to first consider the relationship
between tools and cognition in more detail.
Extended Minds and the Significance of Tools
In their paper, “The Extended Mind,” philosophers of mind Andy
Clark and David Chalmers begin by asking, “Where does the mind
stop and the rest of the world begin?”9 Drawing on a range of
examples in which cognition is shown to rely on two-way inter-
actions between people and things, Clark and Chalmers’ answer
is to look beyond the limits of the skull, skin, or body. The mind,
they argue, should be reconceived to include features of the exter-
nal environment. In situations like rearranging Scrabble tiles,
using a pen and paper to solve math problems, or interacting
with navigational instruments, Clark and Chalmers find extended
cognitive systems. Throughout all kinds of activities, they claim,
we use our environment to help work things out. From an ex-
tended mind perspective, therefore, thinking does not only
take place within the confines of our heads, but is spread out into
the world. Clark and Chalmers thus regard the “general parapher-
nalia of language, books, diagrams, and culture” all to operate as
parts of extended minds.10
A critical foundation for both Clark and Chalmers’ thesis
and my discussion of tool use is a bi-directional understanding of
thought and action. The theory of extended mind promotes the
idea that actions are performed not just to advance toward a goal,
but also to help work things out. Rather than seeing tool use as a
means by which to transcribe predetermined forms onto paper,
screens, or three-dimensional materials, an extended approach to
cognition recognizes that there are occasions when tools are used
to find out what these forms should be. Cognitive scientists David
Kirsh and Paul Maglio here provide a useful distinction by
describing two kinds of action: pragmatic action and epistemic
action. The former refers to actions intended “to bring one physi-
cally closer to a goal,” and the latter sees actions “performed to
uncover information that is hidden or hard to compute mentally.”11
DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018

12 Clark and Chalmers, “The Extended
Mind,” 8.
13 Ibid., 10.
14 Ibid., 8.
15 See, for example, Edwin Hutchins’s
study of cognition onboard naval ships:
Edwin Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild
(Cambridge: MIT press, 1995; Lucy
Suchman’s work on the nature of plan-
ning in human and computer interaction:
Lucy A. Suchman, Plans and Situated
Actions: The Problem of Human–
Machine Communication (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987);
or Andrew Pickering’s account of
scientific practice: Andrew Pickering,
The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency,
and Science (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1995).
16 See, e.g., Tim Ingold, Making:
Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and
Architecture (Oxford: Routledge, 2013);
Lambros Malafouris, How Things Shape
the Mind (MIT Press, 2013); and Jane
Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political
Ecology of Things (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 2009).
17 Ibid.,10.
18 See, e.g., C. Knappett, Thinking Through
Material Culture: An Interdisciplinary
Approach (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2005); and Colin
Renfrew, ed., The Cognitive Life of
Things: Recasting the Boundaries of the
Mind (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for
Archaeological Research, 2010).
19 Lars Spuybroek, The Sympathy of Things:
Ruskin and the Ecology of Design
(Rotterdam: V2_Publishing, 2011), 300.
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021
For example, rearranging Scrabble tiles can be considered epis-
temic action in that the tiles are moved to help reveal how they
might be used in the game. When parts of the world are used in
this way—so that, “were it done in the head, we would have no
hesitation in recognizing [it] as part of the cognitive process”—
then Clark and Chalmers believe the things used should be recog-
nized as the components of minds.12 “In a very real sense,” they
write, “the re-arrangement of [Scrabble] tiles on the tray is not part
of action; it is part of thought.”13 Importantly for this paper, the the-
ory of extended mind proposes that wherever we find such epis-
temic action, a “spread of epistemic credit” should occur across the
non-human components of minds.14 The comparison of rulers and
dividers here is both an attempt to bestow them with epistemic
credit and an exploration of how we can better understand design
tools and techniques in these terms.
I have drawn on the theory of extended mind to offer a
readily understood introduction to the methodology underlying
this paper. Note, however, that Clark and Chalmers were not, and
are not, lone voices in calling for this view of cognition. Examples
of a similarly distributed approach stretch back before Clark and
Chalmers’ theorizing of the extended mind.15 And in more recent
years, such examples can be found with ever-increasing fre-
quency.16 I’ve relied on the theory of extended mind here not to
suggest that it is unique but because, in and among the different
terminologies applied by various authors, it offers a concise expli-
cation of this general, cross-disciplinary tendency toward distrib-
uted models of cognition. Clark and Chalmers are themselves alert
to the similarities between their own work and that of others; they
draw on other studies to stress that their work is much more than
an exercise in redefining the word “mind”: “[S]eeing cognition as
extended is not merely making a terminological decision,” but pro-
posing a way of thinking about cognition that “makes a significant
difference to the methodology of scientific investigation.”17 Con-
ceiving the mind as a system that includes features of the external
environment allows interactions with that environment to be sub-
jected to novel analyses.18
The Extended Mind and the Study of Design Tools
I propose that this reframing of action, as a part of thought,
provides a useful grounding from which to consider the sig-
nificance of tools and techniques during processes of design.
However, despite the widespread interest across other disciplines,
few applications of the work on extended mind can be found in
the literature on design and craft. As architect Lars Spuybroek
observes, “tools are usually understood as mediators, as in-
between instruments, as if the goal already exists, as if the end has
already been reached.”19
DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018 11
 One exception to this assumption can be found in Henrik
Gedenryd’s exploration of the extendedness of cognitive processes
and design practice in his dissertation, “How Designers Work.”20
The subject of Gedenryd’s dissertation can be summarized as a
question: Why do designers work the way they do, when the tradi-
tional theories of cognition and design say that designers should
be doing something quite different?21 As implied by this question,
Gedenryd is critical of what he terms “intramental” accounts of
cognition. 22 In such accounts, all thinking takes place “in the
head,” in the words of Clark and Chalmers, isolated from action in
the world.23 Gedenryd uses studies of design sketching to demon-
strate that sketches are not used only to render pre-existing ideas,
but also to provide feedback throughout a design process.24 The
practice of sketching helps to discover previously hidden qualities
or characteristics of an emergent design. Gedenryd’s analysis of
thinking and drawing thus “gives little justification for treating
them as separate activities, but rather as two aspects of one single
activity. Thinking and sketching go on in parallel and mutually
enable one another to move forward.”25
Throughout his dissertation, Henrik Gedenryd’s primary
interest is to use evidence from the practice of designers (in partic-
ular, their employment of sketching and prototyping techniques as
means of thought) to challenge overtly mental accounts of human
cognition. In sympathy with works like that of Clark and Chalm-
ers, Gedenryd seeks to advance the extended understandings of
cognition more generally. However, in bringing together the prac-
tice of design with theories of extended cognition, he provides a
rare example of their compatibility that benefits design theory as
much as it does cognitive science. For the remainder of this paper,
I draw on the insights of extended mind theory and its promotion
of the role of action in thought.

Using Rulers and Dividers

20 Henrik Gedenryd, “How Designers Work”
(PhD dissertation, Lund University, 1998).
21 Ibid., 101.
22 Ibid., 8.
23 Clark and Chalmers, “The Extended
Mind,” 8.
24 Gedenryd, “How Designers Work,” 104.
25 Ibid.
26 Clark and Chalmers, “The Extended
Mind,” 8.
As stated, my interest is to explore how tools and techniques struc-
ture design processes. The comparison of rulers and dividers is
therefore an attempt to bestow them with what Clark and Chalm-
ers call “epistemic credit.”26 Although my focus is on the specifics
of these two tools, I hope this work might serve as an example of
the kind of study that could be performed more generally, as part
of a broader effort to discuss the influence of tools and techniques
on design practice.
Dividing a Line into Thirds
Rulers and dividers are multi-purpose tools. Generally, they can
be used in one of two ways: to discover the dimensions or propor-
tions of existing things or to help lay out designs on a surface. Very

12 DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021

 Figure 5 often, a task requires rulers or dividers to be used in each of
Dividing a line with dividers. these modes—both as instruments of discovery and as tools for
marking new features. Here, I describe a simple task that combines
these two purposes to illustrate a fundamental difference between
the tools.
Imagine we would like to divide a line into thirds along
its length. Using dividers, the first task is to approximate a third
of the distance and set the points of the tool to this dimension. The
distance can then be “stepped out” to check the approximation.
Any inaccuracy in this first attempt can be revealed by “walking”
the dividers from one end of the line toward the other. If the final
step under- or overshoots the endpoint of the line, a third of this
dimension should be added or removed, respectively (see Figure
5). With practice, designers might achieve a successful division into
thirds on this second attempt. If not, they can repeat the process
until the even thirds are discovered. After the dividers are cor-
rectly set, they can be used to mark the divisions into a substrate’s
surface, by applying more pressure to the points throughout
another series of steps.

DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018 13

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021

 Figure 6 Performing the same task with a ruler, we would first mea-
Dividing a line with a ruler. sure the length of the line. This numerical dimension can then be
divided by three (see Figure 6). The calculation can be done men-
tally, on paper or using a calculator. The resulting dimensions of
the thirds are then marked using a pen, pencil or knife alongside
the ruler’s edge.
Using either the ruler or the dividers, an identical result can
be achieved: the line can be accurately divided into three lengths.
This exercise, then, does not expose the varying capacities of these
two layout tools, nor is it an instance of using them in search of an
as-yet-undetermined form. However, even this simple task intro-
duces an important difference in the nature of these tools and their

14 DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021


27 Walker and Tolpin, By Hand and Eye, 153.
28 For a discussion of how a generative
sequences can be employed throughout
processes of designing and making, see
Christopher Alexander, The Process of
Creating Life, vol. 2 of The Nature of
Order: An Essay on the Art of Building
and the Nature of the Universe (Berkeley,
CA: The Center for Environmental
Structure, 2002), 301–2.
29 Example taken from George R. Walker
and Jim Tolpin, By Hound & Eye: A
Plain & Easy Guide to Designing Furniture
with No Further Trouble (Fort Mitchell,
KY: Lost Art Press, 2015), 117.
30 Turnbull, “The Ad Hoc Collective Work of
Building Gothic Cathedrals,” 323.
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021
associated techniques. This difference lies in the ruler’s numerical
system of measurement and the dividers’ proportional system. A
ruler always must refer to the units of a standardized measure-
ment system, where a pair of dividers attends to the relationships
of physical, real world distances.
Using Dividers to Design: Questions of Proportion
In the example of dividing a line, we see that the questions that
might be resolved using a pair of dividers involve the relationships
between different elements. In other words, we might say that
dividers pose questions in terms of proportional relationships. This
phrasing takes seriously the the role that tools and techniques play
as extensions of minds. Dividers structure action around the dis-
covery and creation of proportional relationships. Moving on from
dividing a line into thirds, this aspect of their character is most
apparent if we consider the sequence in which they are used to
design previously unspecified forms.
Before dividers are used to mark any point, they first must
be set to a particular distance. This distance should be one that is
useful in creating the lines and shapes of a design. If it is too large,
it does not allow us to mark the smaller dimensions of a design. If
it is too small, stepping out long distances becomes unnecessarily
laborious. This first task thus introduces a critical concern during
the use of dividers: the length of the “module.” A module is a dis-
tance that can be divided or multiplied repeatedly to create the
lines and shapes of a design as in Figure 3.27
The module need not be specified in millimeters or inches;
designing in this way defines the relationship between elements
rather than their absolute dimensions. Unless we aim to create a
layout that is the actual size of the finished artifact, the precise dis-
tance to which the dividers are set while designing is not critical.
Any design created using a module-based approach can be easily
scaled up or down at a later stage, by adjusting the actual dimen-
sion to which the module is equivalent. Thus, as we design a spe-
cific instance of an artifact, we are also creating what might be
termed a “generative sequence” that can be followed to create the
same artifact at differing sizes.28 The scalability of divider-made
designs was an advantage exploited by the designers and makers
of the past. For example, when laying out a pointed arch, alterna-
tive sequences can be used to step out the spring and focal points
to create arches that have different qualities (see Figure 7).29 That
such sequences can be easily remembered, shared, and adapted to
the particulars of individual circumstances made them highly
valuable to the builders of antiquity.30
DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018 15
 Figure 7
How to draw a slender arch (left, with focal
points outside the spring points) and how to
draw a broader arch (right, with focal points
inside the spring points).
16
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021
As a more contemporary example, using a pair of divid-
ers in the practice of designing a chair (e.g., the one in Figure 3)
requires us to continually reconsider the relationship of the
module to the whole design as we work. Does this distance allow
us to create the right kinds of proportions? Are the divisions sim-
ple to work with? For example, divisions of 12 (e.g., one-sixth, one-
fourth, one-third, and one-half), like those found in the body part
DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018
 measurements of antiquity, offer more whole number fraction
options than when using divisions of 10 (with just one-fifth and
one-half). 31 Thus, right at the beginning of our design process,
setting and resetting the dividers becomes a key concern, as we
continually reconsider the relationship between parts, as well as
the appropriateness of the module and its divisions for the task.
Frequent revision of this setting is often necessary, until a useful
module emerges alongside the design work. As designers exper-
iment with the tool, by tentatively stepping out the potential
relationships, both the artifact and its own unique system of mea-
surement begin to emerge.

Using a Ruler to Design: Questions of Units

When using a ruler to determine the distance between points, we
begin by placing it on a surface so that it spans the two (or more)
points we would like to define. Once one of the points has been
marked, a ruler allows us to decide on the location of the other
points by referring to the markings of a measurement system that
run along its edge. These graduated markings are continuous,
enabling us to choose any dimension that seems appropriate.
Once the first set of points has been marked, the ruler is moved
to span the next distance and we again are required to decide on
the dimension.
To again take the extended mind argument seriously, and
to consider tools to be an important part of cognitive systems,
we might say that the ruler poses questions in terms of universal units
of measure. Each time the ruler is repositioned, it physically retains
no information about the previous decisions made, and we are free
to choose any dimension along the continuous scale. Unlike set-
ting and resetting a pair of dividers, the sequence of steps when
using a ruler does not ask us to consider proportional relation-
ships from the start. Instead, it allows us to define any feature of a
design independently from the others; it allows, and even encour-
ages, a dramatic shift in attention away from the proportional con-
cerns prompted by a pair of dividers.
Of course, making a design with the same proportional
relationships using either a pair of dividers or a ruler would be
possible. Indeed, if we disregard the importance of the external
world in the process, we might argue that these decisions are
always a matter for the internal cognitive capacities of the
designer, regardless of what tools and techniques they are using.
However, what is clear from the examination here is that a ruler
does not structure the task in terms of proportion. We do not need
to start by discovering a useful module, and we do not need to
step off an emergent design to quickly determine proportional
relationships. Any such relationships may be discovered only
upon reflection, with reference to the units of measure and
31 Walker and Tolpin, By Hand and Eye, 12.
through the detour of mathematics.

DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018 17

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021


32 Stewart Brand, The Clock of the Long
Now: Time and Responsibility (London:
Phoenix, 1999), 16.
33 François Sigaut, “More (and Enough) on
Technology!” History and Technology 2
(1985): 122. Note that Sigaut here uses
“technics” as a synonym of “techniques.”
34 Such emphasis is clearly expressed,
for example, in Luca Pacioli’s 1509
book De divina proportione [The Divine
Proportion], which, inspired by the
ancient ideas of Vitruvius, cites propor-
tion as the most important architectural
concept. See Hanno-Walter Kruft, A
History of Architectural Theory: From
Vitruvius to The Present (NY: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1994), 63. See
also Walker and Tolpin, By Hand &
Eye, 9–10.
18
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021
Discussion: A Technology of Design
The word “technology” typically is used in the anglophone world
to refer to objects and techniques that apply sophisticated, rela-
tively novel scientific knowledge. As computer scientist Alan Kay
pithily suggests, “what people mean by the word technology, is
anything invented since they were born.”32 However, in French
scholarship, technologie has long been a field of academic enquiry:
It is the study of techniques. Francois Sigaut, who made the
study of techniques a central part of his work as a historian and
anthropologist, wrote that “[t]echnology is to technics what lin-
guistics is to language, biology to living beings, psychology to
mental activity, epistemology to knowledge, etc.” According to this
definition, technology is a science that aims “to acquire knowledge
on technics.”33
My study of rulers and dividers can be considered an exer-
cise in this sort of technology. Its aim has been to reveal how these
tools and their techniques structure processes of design differently
by prioritizing certain qualities over others. The evidence for these
differences can be found in the physical and temporal arrangement
of the techniques. A ruler is placed on a surface, allowing us to run
or jump a pen, pencil, or knife between any of its gradated mark-
ings. A pair of dividers walks across a surface, meaning that we
cannot leap-frog from one point to another, but must arrive at an
end point only having taken and considered each step according to
the proportional system of measurement. In the analysis given
here, I have framed this difference by focusing on the questions
posed by the tools. The techniques of divider use require that we
consider questions of proportion, and those of ruler use ask us to
determine distances in the shared units of a measuring system.
Throughout the paper, I have tried to give a sober account of
the differences between divider and ruler techniques, leaving to
the reader decisions about the merits of designing while using dif-
ferent systems of measurement. Indeed, the real value of this kind
of technology is that it helps each of us to better identify the rela-
tionship between the techniques of design practice and the out-
comes, and then to align them accordingly. From a historical
perspective, this link between the tools of design and the resulting
forms created is clearly seen. Dividers are emblematic of a time in
which the study and creation of proportional relationships domi-
nated scientific and artistic thought.34
In contemporary design practice, proportions are usually
given less consideration. Dividers are not as ubiquitous as they
once were—and neither are rulers, for that matter, as computer-
aided design (CAD) software has taken an increasingly dominant
role in much design development. On this point, we might con-
sider the techniques associated with CAD. In most cases, as the
first line is drawn in CAD software, the user is immediately asked
DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018
 Figure 8
CAD interface asking for the dimensions
of a line.
35 To avoid falling into a trap discouraged
by Sigaut (of using technological analy-
ses without a proper understanding of
techniques), I would note that designing
parametrically in CAD software does
create relationships between parts
and wholes. See Francois Sigaut,
“Crops, Techniques and Affordances,”
in Redefining Nature, Ecology, Culture
and Domestication, ed. Roy F. Ellen
and Katsuyoshi Fukui (Oxford: Berg,
1996), 427.
36 See David Pye’s description of the “work-
manship of certainty,” in David Pye, The
Nature and Art of Workmanship (1968;
London: The Herbert Press, 1995), 20.
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00482 by guest on 30 March 2021
how long that line should be, in either millimeters or inches
(see Figure 8). Subsequent lines are also specified in these units,
enabling the dimensions of each element to be considered without
relation to those that have been created before. 35 In ruler-like
fashion, then, the universal measurements required of modern
manufacturing appear to have been transmitted from the tools
and techniques of factories into the tools and techniques of de-
sign studios. We now feed numbers into the machines that sit on
our desks.
As we examine the techniques associated with design tools
like rulers, dividers, and CAD software, the usefulness of
extended mind theory becomes apparent. Without this perspec-
tive, we instead rely on what Gedenryd calls “intramental”
accounts of cognition and infer that tools are mediators used to
transcribe pre-existing ideas into reality. In this model, we are lim-
ited to discussing only the degrees of certainty with which our
tools can achieve a prescribed result.36 However, by undertaking
the kind of analysis demonstrated in the divider/ruler comparison,
and by affording things the epistemic credit they deserve, design-
ers can better see and discuss how tools and techniques influence
processes of design, prioritizing some decisions over others and
emphasizing certain qualities.
A technology of design would thus sensitize us to the ways
that tools and techniques structure and support our work, opening
up questions across all kinds of design practice. For example, if we
design services using sticky notes, do they force us to adopt an epi-
sodic, atemporal understanding of life? If we shave a piece of wood
to shape, rather than sawing it, do we access valuable opportuni-
ties for assessing and revising the emergent result that would oth-
erwise be lost? What if we hack a piece of CAD software to make it
pose questions of proportion, as dividers do?
My suggestion for this technology is to acknowledge that
every technique has its own epistemic character—a character that
influences how we work things out and, therefore, what those
things will be like. Uncovering the nature of this character would
be the work of a technology of design. And its ultimate aim would
be to help inform our selection of the techniques that offer the
greatest promise for a given task.
DesignIssues: Volume 34, Number 2 Spring 2018 19